Mettle

Over the course of the next three years, Eileen made the utmost of her situation. She took to teaching her son everything she could with a zeal and thought often of her father. Was this what it was like for him? With no son, he must have realized he had little choice but to embrace what he had (her). Eileen, having little choice of leaving her steadily decaying relationship, was doing her best to get by through her son.

In some ways, she and her father were very much alike, Eileen concluded with warm affection.

It was shortly after Severus turned four that something odd happened, however. He had been playing outside not far from her as she hung the clothes on the line when he made a strangled noise and flopped frontwards. Terrified for her only son, Eileen had picked him up and rushed to the phone. An ambulance came and even her Tobias turned up at the hospital once the factory notified him of what occurred.

"What happened?" he asked her upon coming into their son's little corner in a long room of hospital beds.

Biting her lip as her tiny son lay among the white sheets of the big bed, Eileen could only tell him the truth. "He made a noise, he toppled over and wouldn't wake up."

"God almighty," Tobias whispered as he put a hand on her shoulder.

It was the first time he'd comforted her in years and Eileen soaked it in. She went as far as to cry into his chest and let him stroke her hair while their son lay unresponsive in his bed.

A day or so later, Severus woke up. Completely fine and leaving the doctors baffled. Eileen almost took him to a healer then, wondering if they couldn't do better by her son, but she didn't in the end because Tobias had vetoed that idea with a great flourish the moment she brought it to his attention.

"I ain't lettin' some magician touch my son!"

Eileen had relented, more fearful of what they'd find than anything Tobias would do to her at that point. Her Severus wasn't… He was odd now. He was quiet, too quiet, even for his usual taciturn ways. He became her little duckling after the incident and played not at all with his toys anymore. He did not even carry around his favorite matchbox car or doodle with his crayons while she made him lunch.

But what made Eileen worry most were the nightmares. Severus woke up some nights screaming so loud lights across the street went on in the neighbors' houses. Tobias always wanted to throttle Severus for that, but Eileen held enough weight in her son's upbringing to stop him each and every time her husband brought it up.

"It was a nightmare, Tobias!" she'd holler at him as her poor child wept quiet tears into the crook between her shoulder and neck.

He'd snarl back at her and gnash his teeth, but what she presented was a logic even he couldn't deny that.

She'd ask Severus what he was dreaming of afterward, usually, he'd just say, "Nag'i" or "Dark Lord", like she was supposed to understand what that meant. Eileen didn't and she brought up the idea of taking him to a muggle psychologist to Tobias. Maybe they'd have a better idea as to what her little son's dreams meant. However, the evening she mentioned that plan to Tobias over dinner…

Her husband had stood up from his chair and slapped her. He roared as her ears rang, "No son of mine is going to a quack!"

"Bad! You're bad!" Severus cried as he threw himself at his father's legs. "You can't hit Mummy!" he shrieked as he beat his little fists into his father's big knees.

Eileen hadn't ever feared for her son's safety so strongly as she did in that moment. Her husband, still oh so furious, ripped Severus off himself and picked the little tot up and spanked Severus far too roughly for his small size before dropping him back on the ground with an order of, "Go to your room!"

Severus didn't. He stood there, looking up with teary, scarily wrought black eyes and repeated himself, "You can't hit Mummy."

Unsure of whom to be afraid for, Eileen felt herself go taut with tension. Plates set out for dinner were hovering a few centimeters above the table, ready to fly, and Tobias's eyes were wide and wild, black irises looking like tunnels to his deep, angry soul. Eileen knew one was going to be dead in a moment if she didn't do something now!

"No!" Eileen screamed as she launched herself at son. Grabbing him, she managed to get out of their home and halfway down the street before Tobias so much as made it out the front door.

She kept running after that. Eileen got all the way to London before she found herself clueless as to what to do next.

Severus, for his part, had laid a supportive hand on her arm and with reasoning far too adult, said, "We should go to where the moving picture books came from, Mummy."

"You want to go to Prince Manor?" replied Eileen, uncomprehending of why anyone, especially such a small boy like Severus, would want to go there.

Face showing his frustration, the child scrunched his face and repeated, "No! Where the moving picture books came from!"

Eileen bit her lip. She could go back, she reluctantly considered. Eileen could finally call the Muggle World a failed experiment and, maybe, there would be something for her back home… If not her mother and the Prince fortune, there would be an opportunity for work and an acceptance of her and her son's abilities in the wider Magical World.

"Okay," Eileen agreed. And together, mother and son found themselves walking the streets of Hogsmeade not too long after. She knew they must have looked quite the strange pair, both dressed like Muggles, she with a bruised face and her son looking far too grown up for his young age.

Walking into the Malfoy Apothecary, she wasn't surprised to find Abraxas's father behind the counter. The old man had always liked to take a hands-on approach with how his businesses were run.

"Eileen!" he exclaimed in surprise.

She didn't smile, didn't even say hello. Instead, she said, "Can I borrow some parchment and an owl? I need to write my mother."

"Of course," he agreed as he sent an uneasy look to the little boy hanging off her wrist.

After sending the letter, Abraxas's father brought her and her son to the back room for tea. And there, the two waited until Eileen's mother showed up in all her pomp and glory.

"Eileen," she said after giving her a once over.

Too tired to care that she was being judged as imperfect, Eileen reached for Severus in the chair next to her and held him out. "I don't care if you don't want me anymore, but this is my son and he needs a home."

"The father?"

Eileen didn't like it, but she lied right through her teeth. "He died," she said.

Giving a little sniff, her mother declared, "You will both be coming back to the manor with me."

Eileen hadn't felt so relieved in years. She might have even cried if it weren't for Severus staring up at her with his wide eyes. Following after her mother, Eileen wasn't surprised that she was shown to her old rooms.

"I'll find him a room," her mother offered.

Clutching her son, Eileen said, "I'll keep him with me." And she glared at the woman who'd birthed her for a long while to keep her from fighting her decision.

"Fine," her mother answered in a clipped tone of voice. "Do what you please!" And, then, Eileen's mother left her and Severus all alone in her old rooms.

Falling back on her girlhood bed, she'd looked to her little son and whispered, "Come, love, it's time for a nice nap."

He joined her and they both had their most restful sleep in ages.

-v-v-v-v-v-

Over the course of the next month, Eileen felt herself regress. She was much like she had when her father died, uprooted and without a tie to the changing reality around her. She cried sometimes for Tobias and all the time she'd wasted on him (as well as the time not wasted on him). Eileen became so distant from life her mother had to make sure she ate and did not sit in her chair by her bedroom window all day.

When she realized she wasn't going to get better anytime soon, her mother began to take care of Severus for Eileen.

In a faraway sort of way, Eileen noted with interest that her mother doted on the adult-like child. She didn't vainly attempt to make him take an interest in things he didn't care for, such as quidditch or toy wands. No, what her mother did was the exact opposite of what she'd once done with Eileen. She let Severus choose their course of action. If he wanted to read, she offered her lap and let him pick the story; if he wanted to take a walk outside, she let his curiosity drive their direction and line of conversation. If he just wanted to hide away under the couch, or beneath the coffee table, her mother let him. She didn't tell Severus he was uncouth and ought to come out lest he want a firm smack for misbehaving.

And the fascinating thing was it worked. Severus warmed up to Eileen's mother and began to actively seek her out more and more over the month as Eileen continued to float around in her head trying to find reason in her life so she could be lucid once again.

One day, Severus stopped trying to talk to her altogether and started talking to his grandmother instead. He even told her mother about his nightmares. Maybe she'd just been too absorbed in her own problems before, but now Eileen was starting to realize something about her son's dream, it was always the same. There was this "Dark Lord" character and then that Nagini and then–

Well, Severus had yet to say what came after Nagini. She feared for the day he would, actually.

That began to stir something in Eileen's heart. It was something just a bit too hot to be love and it wouldn't be until her little Severus called his grandmother "Granny" one afternoon that Eileen would understand what was festering in her ribcage.

One gray day, when the world was too wet to explore, Severus, Eileen, and her mother were sitting in one of the Prince Manor's champagne and green themed parlors passing the afternoon. Tea sat with a warming charm on one table beside a nice little plate of treacle tarts. Severus rolled around on the floor as he played with the Prince family's cat and as Eileen's mother muttered at the newspaper she was reading, Eileen began to drift off into a doze.

However, before she could be fully captured by it, Eileen was woken from it when Severus spoke. "Granny, can I have two pieces of treacle tart today?"

Paper rustling, the old woman said, "I don't see why not. You finished all your lunch like a good boy today!"

"I love you, Granny," replied Severus as he got to his knees and hugged the woman's legs.

Chest suddenly bubbling with jealousy, Eileen stood up and shouted, "Oh really? You love her, do you! What about me, Severus! What about the woman who gave birth to you and saved your life? What about me!"

Dark eyes very wide and staring straight at her with a fear she hadn't seen in almost a whole month, Eileen immediately regretted her outburst. Up on his feet now, Severus ran out of the room and far away into the depths of Prince Manor.

"Severus!" Eileen cried, already planning to run after her son and apologize to him. However, a hand snagged her wrist and she was made to look in her mother's face. "Let me go," Eileen demanded.

Shaking her head, Eileen's mother said, "You and I need to talk."

"What about Severus!" she hissed in annoyance.

Rolling her eyes as she forced them both to sit, her mother reminded Eileen, "He can be found with an easy Point-Me-Spell." Eyeing her critically, her mother asked, almost sneeringly, "Or, did you forget your learning while living like a barbarian?"

Face flushing with fury, Eileen wanted to run away all over again. "I did not live like a barbarian!"

"What do you call Muggle-living then, my dear?"

Eileen did think about it. There had been something fulfilling about it, she recalled. The way everything was done with your own two hands or not at all. "Gainful, Mother," she said.

Snorting, her mother narrowed her eyes at her and told Eileen, "You cannot talk to your son like that."

"Oh really?" she snarked as she crossed her arms.

"You're a good mother, Merlin knows, but you just can't."

"You–" Eileen stopped. Good mother? "I'm not a good mother!" she exclaimed. "Have you not watched me the entire month wasting away here in a chair? Like an invalid?"

Averting her eyes, Eileen's mother asked, "Did you not leave a man you loved last month because he was a threat to your son?"

"How did you…?"

A bit of a smirk playing on her aged face, the woman reminded Eileen, "Severus is just a little boy, my dear."

"I– Oh," was all Eileen could mutter in reply.

Reaching out, her mother touched her hand and whispered, "It took great courage to not only leave your love but come back here and face what you left behind as well. It wasn't even for you, now was it? You'd have stayed with Severus's father no matter how he treated you if your son wasn't in the picture, wouldn't you have?"

Eileen couldn't look at her mother because they both knew the answer. If Severus hadn't been in danger, she would have stayed. If she hadn't felt her husband was determined to kill their son, Eileen would have stayed and let the man not only hurt her, but their son to some extent as well (as he had!)

"One of them was going to end up dead," she said. Eileen sighed. "And Severus is so tiny… I just couldn't believe he'd be the one to make it out alive."

Leaning in, her mother gave Eileen a rare kiss. "That is why you are a good mother. You can read people without letting your own hopes cloud your vision. It was only when you were gone that I realized where I went wrong. I don't want you to leave again because I'm treating Severus as my second chance. You might not believe it, but I do see now I was treating you poorly. I attempted to make you into someone you weren't growing up and now that I have Severus here, I want to see him as the person he is and be close to him in a way we never were when you were little."

Studying her mother, Eileen asked her most revealing question yet, "You aren't trying to steal him from me?"

"Merlin no! I'm just taking care of him as you get a handle on this twist life's given you."

"Oh, Mum," Eileen whimpered as she collapsed into her mother's arms and began to weep. "I-I-I've just felt so lost! Tobias was so wonderful and I had hoped he'd get used to magic and love me and Severus like he did before and then I saw! I saw one of them was going to be dead if I didn't do something and so I had to leave and I–!"

Her mother began to brush her fingers through Eileen's hair. "Shhh…" her mother murmured.

An hour or so later, Eileen finished with her sniveling and sat up.

"Go find Severus," her mother said.

Eileen didn't see a reason to argue. And without further adieu, she went.

-v-v-v-v-v-

A spell later, Eileen was back in her rooms and was surprised to find Severus lost in the sheets of her bed. Bending over the little boy, she brushed back his hair and pressed several kisses to his small face. Shortly after, he woke up and locked his gaze with hers.

"Mummy," he whispered, tiny arms yearning for her to hold him.

Eileen wasted no time in sweeping him into a hug. Cradling Severus against her, she apologized, "Mummy's sorry she yelled at you."

"That's okay," her son told her as he pulled away to reveal an expression that was worryingly mature on his young face. "You'll yell more, but Da's not here. So I won't get so scared anymore when you do. When you used to yell, it meant Da was mad and bad stuff was going to happen to us, remember?"

"I remember," Eileen whispered as she brought her son so close she knew he probably heard the heightened speed of her heart as she shook.

Would Severus ever forget his father? Eileen had to wonder. Or would he remain a permanent stain on her son's dealings with the world? For his sake, she hoped Tobias would begin to fade away until he was nothing more than the old monster all children feared hid in their closets and under their beds.

And this is the second chapter of Mettle! What do you think? As you can see, I have no interest in sticking to canon...

To my reviewers, The Dark One Rising, KodeV, 2sidedstoryteller29995, Jemennuie, and alyssialui, thanks, guys! You rock :)

Thank you for reading and pretty please review :)

EDITED: 4/5/16